#But for more modern numbers Duncan Chishol and Lauren McColl and really any bunch of Scottish fiddlers will suffics

[the-busy-ghost]

Warlocks and Witches in a Dance

Do you enjoy classic literature? Do you like reading seasonal stories? Do you want to learn some funky new words? Do you want an excuse to spend the evening in a comfy chair with a hot drink and maybe a plate of shortbread, listening to the fiddle tearing into some reels and strathspeys, and perusing some engaging reading material while the rain and wind howl around outside?

Allow me to introduce you to honest Tam O’ Shanter, who stayed out too late one black night in Ayrshire and got the fleg of his life.

Links to the full poem:

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/tam-o-shanter-tale/

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43815/tam-o-shanter

Language help:

https://dsl.ac.uk/ (this is a searchable dictionary of the Scots language both before and after 1700)

https://www.litscape.com/author/Robert_Burns/Robert_Burns_Glossary_S.html

Some Analysis and Textual History to start you off:

“The First Publication of Burns’ Tam o’ Shanter”, B.Dawson

“Burns’s Use of Parody in ‘Tam O’ Shanter”, Allan H. MacLaine

“The Narrator of Tam o’ Shanter”, John C. Weston

“Robert Burns, Tam O’ Shanter”, Murray Pittock

Wikipedia Entry for the old Kirk of Alloway

#Also Malcolm Arnold's Tam O'Shanter Overture is a good piece of classical music #Re: the hornpipes jigs strathspeys and reels- Concerto Caledonia did a good album of eighteenth century music #But for more modern numbers Duncan Chishol and Lauren McColl and really any bunch of Scottish fiddlers will suffics #booklr #poetry #Robert Burns #I have got to memorise more than the first couple of verses; I really want to annoy the hell out of my dad following him around reciting it #Though I really love even the first few lines especially the bit about Kate 'gathering her brows like a gathering storm' #'Nursing her wrath to keep it warm' #Like she COULD go to bed or maybe Tam is hoping that if he's late enough she will be too tired to fight about it when he gets in #But no our sulky sullen dame is going make SURE she keeps her anger at a good rolling boil so that she can lay into him when he gets in #No matter how late he is she will be blazing